By Alexi CohanSTAFF WRITER
Every Hofstra student who dorms probably knows the dreadfully loud beeping that can happen at any hour of the day or night signaling everyone to head downstairs and outside. It’s a fire alarm.
Typically, this annoying process does not happen too often, but as reported in last week’s edition of The Chronicle, there were 35 fire alarms just during the month of September.
Safety is of course extremely important, and always a major concern for all, however, this has gone too far. The alarms can be disruptive to a student’s studying, or more imporantly, sleep schedule, and that point has been reached.
The fire alarms in the residence halls on campus are very sensitive and will go off if someone is smoking, using hairspray or taking an excessively steamy shower, for example.
This situation can happen to students when they are home, as well; the smoke detector beeps, someone waves the smoke away or opens the door and that is the end of the story.
However, in residence halls, the issue is not resolved as easily. What could have been a beeping smoke detector from a burnt piece of toast turns into an entire evacuation, which is excessive considering the number of students who live in residence halls and burn food or smoke in their rooms.
For this reason, the current system is unrealistic. Going outside a couple times a year for a fire alarm is understandable, but some dorms, like the Nassau Suffolk residence halls, have had two alarms within 24 hours. This is simply unreasonable and it is very frustrating for students to be waking up at all hours to go outside for yet another alarm. It is a waste of time and truly infuriating for many students.
In complaining about the alarms, however, one must take into consideration the element of safety. Although the current fire alarm system is causing frustration for students, one would hate to imagine the alternative – if the fire alarms didn’t work and there was a real emergency.
While students should be thankful for such high-functioning and careful safety precautions, this still does not make up for the problem at hand. Having students continuously parade outside for fire alarms without a viable solution to the problem is laughable. A real solution could come with less sensitive alarms, better-informed students and attentive RAs and RDs.
If the RAs and RDs informed their residents more thoroughly about why the alarms continue to go off, there would be less incidents. Also, if the fire alarm systems were altered to be less sensitive, students would see an improvement.
Finally, a different protocol for fire alarms is necessary. If the alarm was tripped for reasons other than an actual fire, there is no reason to have students wait outside for the fire department and Public Safety to come for extended periods of time in all types of weather. Once confirmed it was not an emergency, students should be allowed to go right back in.
In total, this bothersome situation needs a remedy as soon as possible because every fire alarm pushes students further to the brink and creates an unhappy living community full of exhausted students because either their sleep or work was interrupted.
One must not put safety out of mind, but 35 fire alarms in one month is horribly intrusive and demonstrates more than anything that there is something wrong with the manner with which fire alarms are dealt.
The views and opinions expressed in the Op-Ed section are those of the authors of the articles. They are not an endorsement of the views of The Chronicle or its staff. The Chronicle does not discriminate based on the opinions of the authors.